


Riptides

by Profrock



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 06:10:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7673065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Profrock/pseuds/Profrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan finds something a bit more than unexpected when a clip he’s filming in Phil’s room goes horribly wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riptides

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote all of this between the hours of 12 and 2 am one night when I couldn't get an idea out of my head

I did have permission to use Phil’s room. If the court asked, I could whip out my phone while the camera panned to a dramatic closeup, and find the text, received at exactly eleven twenty-six a.m. on August second, 2016, which read: _yeah that’s ok btw i’ll be home in an hour._ Boom. Jury, can I have an acquittal, please and thank you.

What I probably didn’t have, however, was permission to accidentally spill coffee all over Phil’s sheets. Which I did. But it was an accident, okay. I needed Phil’s room for a stupid sketch-slash-example of Mother’s Day, and using my own bed just would not work.

So, there I am, stood in the middle of Phil’s room with three shirts stuffed under my cardigan, milky coffee seeping into the sheets and today just not going my way.

I groan, taking the shirts out from under my sweater and, after a moment of consideration, stripping off the sweater all together. I like it, and anyways, it was expensive.

Stripping a bed has never been one of my - admittedly few - talents, but it’s even more difficult when you have to try to not let any liquid soak into the mattress, which is impossible. I grimace as the wet sheet squelches against my chest, grateful that I decided to take my shirt off. I wrestle the duvet out of the cover, discovering with a sigh that that duvet is wet too. I would probably be sleeping on the couch tonight, as it was my fault Phil’s bed was unusable, and it would just be a dick move to not offer my own.

The mattress didn’t sustain much damage, thank god, and I am able to get it all out with a wet rag and aggressive scrubbing. I manage to push the entire bed frame off the wall at one point, and hear a thump from the head of the bed. Great. I managed to knock something off of Phil’s nightstand as well. What’s next, sneezing wrong and the entire building collapses? Honestly, I wouldn’t put it past myself. 

I stand up to go to the head of the bed, trying to figure out what I knocked over. I don’t see anything on the ground, and drop to my knees to look under the bed. The impact hurts more that I thought it would, and I mentally apologize to my ex-girlfriend, for, um, no reason in particular, actually.

I’m on my hands and knees, shirtless, wet with coffee and with my face pressed to an itchy carpet that smells like dirt and feet. Needless to say, this is not how I expected I would be spending my Tuesday morning. But I do see something; what looks to be a book, about two feet in front of my nose. I reach out for it, yelping with pain when I try to bend my arm and it presses against the unforgiving bed frame.

I don’t recognize the book when I draw it out, rolling my shoulder and standing up. I sit down on Phil’s bare mattress, looking at it. It’s a beat-up composition book, definitely old, thick with use and added pages.

I don’t mean to look in it, Honestly, I don’t. I know that Phil has the right to to secrets and privacy, and if he has a private journal then I’m going to respect that. But a single piece of paper slips out from between the swollen covers, a single, hand-drawn pencil sketch on what appears to be an index card, and my heart jumps into my throat.

The drawing is crude, but then again this is Phil’s, and he’s never really been the artist type. I can’t exactly make out what the drawing is of, and that somehow just makes it all the more terrifying. Claws and teeth and inhumane faces, backs arched with terror and fingers clenching desperately at nothing.

After just seeing that, I can’t not open the book.

I don’t want to describe what’s in the book, but take the scariest thing you can think of, the worst horror movie combined with the most blood-curdling nightmare with the feeling of falling out of a building poured over the top.

Now multiply that by a hundred.

Now you’re getting close to how I feel, leafing through page after page of pencil and pen and marker and, in one or two cases, crayon drawings, each image more unsettling than the last. Sometimes there’s words, but it’s the frantic scribbles of a diseased mind rather than anything actually legible. I let out an honest to god shriek when I feel a hand on my shoulder, my heat pounding as I jump away, certain that something from the book had slithered out of the pages and into reality. But it’s only Phil, back from shopping, his expression unreadable. I realize I’m crying.

“You-” I gasp. My hands are shaking, and I can’t stop the tears. “You-” The words won’t come out and I want to scream, rip them from my throat and hurl them into the thick air. Slowly, deliberately, Phil gets down onto one knee, gathering the book in his hands and closing it, slipping the index card that fell out back between the pages.

“What was that?” I manage to ask as Phil gingerly sets the book down on his bedside table, as if one wrong move could prime it to explode.

Phil looks up at me, with an expression I can only describe as pained. His eyes are cold but sympathetic, and his lip quivers slightly.

“It’s what I dream of at night,” Phil whispers, and his voice is as soft as a summer breeze and stops my heart cold more effectively than any bullet. My blood freezes in my veins, and I take a shaky step forward.

“H-how long?” I croak out, my arms wrapping around my own middle. From insecurity, cold, or fear, I don’t know.

“As long as I can remember,” Phil responds. My heart lurches at the thought. “Most every night. My therapist, when I was younger, told me that writing and drawing it out would help get it out of my head.” He waves a hand towards the book. “There have been at least twenty just like those. I burn them when they get full.”

I have a vocabulary of about seventy-five thousand words. And right now, I have no idea what to say.

“C-” I clear my throat. “Can I have a hug? Please? Can I hug you?” I don’t know if I mean for it to be for Phil’s benefit or mine, but Phil nods slowly, standing up and shuffling over to me.

I can’t help the fact that I jump a little bit when Phil touches me, even though I’m expecting it. Phil’s arms wrap around me, one around my shoulders and one around my waist, and I let out a shaky exhale before I can manage to move my arms so I’m clinging to him, one of my hands fisted in his shirt and the other grabbing his waist so hard it’ll probably bruise.

“You-” I’m crying again, aware of the fact that I’m just making an even bigger mess of myself, not to mention getting Phil’s shirt wet, but I can’t stop it.

“Why didn’t you- why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to freak you out,” Phil says. His voice is tight with emotion, and I start crying harder.

“I-I’m sorry,” I manage to choke out. “You- you’re the one who should be crying, n-not taking care of my over-emotional ass.”

Phil lets out a weak chuckle - more of an exhale, really -and I can hear the smile in his voice. “It’s okay Dan. I know, it’s less than pleasant, but I’m used to it at this point. It’s more of a shock to you.”

“B-but that’s even w-worse, that you’re used to some-something so horrible…” I know that I’m rambling but I can’t shut it off, and Phil just hugs me closer, shushing me gently.

“It’s okay Dan. It’s okay.”

“But it-it’s not-”

“Dan. I’ve been dealing with this for that past twenty years, I’m kind of over it at this point. Not a whole lot scares me, well, not this sort of thing anyways.”

“You’re lying,” I sniffle, and my nose drips onto Phil’s shirt. HIs arms tighten around me. “You’re more scared than I am right now.”

Phil’s voice is like fractured glass when he musters himself up to speak. “Yeah. I’m fucking terrified, Dan, always waking up to something chasing you it’s-” His voice finally breaks, and I hear him sniffle as he buries his face into my shoulder.

“Every night I wonder if this is it, if this is finally for real, and if this is the one that finally kills me.” He sounds so broken, so child-like and scared, and I start crying harder. 

I don’t know how long we stay like that, just crying into each other’s shirts. I’m the first to pull back, bringing up one hand to wipe the salty tracks from my cheeks.

“God, we’re a mess,” I breathlessly remark, catching a glimpse of the two or us in the mirror in the corner of Phil’s room. Our faces are blotchy, eyes blood-shot. We look like drug addicts.

I tell Phil as much, and he follows my gaze, laughing lightly. “Yeah, we really do.”

* * *

“Phil?” I ask, hovering at the doorway to the office. Phil pulls his headphones off and swivels around, one eyebrow raised expectantly. I have no idea why I’m so damn nervous.

“Do you, um, do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?”

“Since you trashed mine?” Phil asks with a half-smile, and I stare at the floor, all too aware of the seconds that tick by.

“I meant, um, I meant with me.”

“Oh.” Phil is quiet for a minute, and I taste blood from where I’m chewing my thumbnail to the quick.

“You know what, never mind, it’s fine, I’ll just take the couch, forget I asked-”

“Yes.”

I blinked, confused. “Sorry?”

“Yes. I would like to sleep with you.” Red blazes across Phil’s cheeks as soon as he realized what he had said. “No! I mean, um, not like that, you know what I mean, I-”

Now it’s my turn to cut Phil off in the middle of nervous rambling. “Yeah. I-I know what you mean.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

The computer screen saver boots up, a rainbow of coloured dots fading in and out of existence on the dark screen. Phil clears his throat.

“Are you going to bed now?”

I nod jerkily. “I mean, I was thinking of it, but if you don’t want to now you can just come in later?” My uncertainty changes the statement into a question. Phil shakes his head, clicking the mouse a few times before shutting off the desktop and standing up.

“No, now is more than alright.”

It’s weird, getting ready for bed at the exact same time as someone else. Even in all of our years living together, Phil and I had never overlapped this exactly before. I think we’re too afraid to let the other out of our sight, even if it means bumping elbows as we try to brush out teeth and making awkward eye contact in the mirror, which results in foamy giggles.

Phil changes in the hallway as I change in my own room, opting for a pair of sweatpants over just boxers, despite the heat. Phil is wearing his shirt from earlier - the one he changed into after I slobbered all over his other one, that is - and his Cookie Monster pajama pants. My heart jumps with the thought of such a pure, wonderful person being plagued by such terrible dreams.

Getting into bed is another awkward shuffle of limbs, as we each settle at the very edges of our respective sides of the bed, our backs to each other. I turn off my bedside lamp and the room plunges into darkness, lit only by the moon and the constant bustle of London city outside my window.

“Hey Dan?” Phil’s voice is soft in the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“Can I, um, can I cuddle you?” His voice is a whisper by the end of his question, and I can tell he’s holding his breath. “It’s just that - well, I’m-”

“It’s okay, Phil.” I turn over and scoot closer to the middle, and Phil does the same as soon as he hears me moving. We end up face-to-face, our bodies rigid.

Cautiously, I tangle my foot with his. His hand inches up to lay over my waist. I move closer still, tucking my face into his chest. He holds me tighter, threading his other arm under my neck and sliding his leg up so his knee is between my thighs. He sighs contentedly, and I finally relax.

I fall asleep to Phil’s heartbeat in my ears, and he falls asleep to my hair tickling his nose.

* * *

“Hey Dan?” My mattress in in an unusually talkative mood as I wake up, and it’s strangely warm. It also sounds a lot like Phil…

_Probably because it is Phil. You fell asleep with him last night, remember?_

Oh right.

“Yeah?” I ask as I open my eyes, my brain still groggy with sleep. Phil is on his back, staring at the ceiling, but his right arm is still underneath my neck, wrapping around my shoulders.

“I didn’t have any dreams last night.”

My heart sings, and I have to fight off the smile that wants to split my cheeks.

“Then I guess you’d better sleep here again tonight, make sure it wasn’t just a one-off thing.”

“I suppose I better, “ Phil says, and I can’t bite back my smile any more when I see his grin, toothy and wide and simply ecstatic.

It was hard to believe the notebook I found yesterday belongs to someone as happy and loving as the man next to me.

But then again, who really is everything they say they are?


End file.
